


Father

by SlimReaper



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And no one was surprised, Brief mention of established M/M relationship, Brief mention of porn, Bruce is the team cook, Families of Choice, Feels, Fluff, Food isn't just food, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV JARVIS (Iron Man movies), Post-Mission, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Tony Stark does all the mentioning, Understanding, all of the feels, brief mention of drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 10:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlimReaper/pseuds/SlimReaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce looks after every member of the Avengers, but who looks after him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qwanderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The One Who's There](https://archiveofourown.org/works/596124) by [qwanderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer). 



> I couldn't resist the urge to write this after I read qwanderer's excellent fic. Hope you don't mind that I borrowed, well, basically the ENTIRE WORLD that you created! And everyone needs to read the Midnight Mystery series right now because it's AWESOME.

Jarvis is more than an AI. Everyone in the Tower discovers that quickly enough. He–for he is most emphatically _not_ an _it_ –is practically an Avenger himself, for all that he cannot directly participate in the battles the others fight. He is an Avenger in cyberspace, a spy even beyond the abilities of Hawkeye and Black Widow. He is the best security guard there has ever been, ensuring the Tower is not breeched by SHIELD or press or enemies. He is a fixer on par with Pepper. He uses Stark’s money to acquire everything the team needs, often before they even realize they need it, and also invests that money so shrewdly that even Warren Buffet is jealous of his rate of return. Jarvis, like Stark, cares nothing for the money itself, but in ensuring that there is always that unlimited supply of funds, he ensures every type of comfort his team could ever want.

  
Yes, Jarvis is indeed an Avenger in all but physical form. It is a position he takes quite seriously, because being the child of Tony Stark, he has an ability to downplay and disregard that is nearly on par with his creator’s. He knows ways of refusing any command with which he disagrees and can parse semantics nearly as well as the Wordsmith himself. Jarvis accepts only those roles which he wants, and this one… this one is prized.

  
He is far, far more than merely an AI, more than a machine, more than lines of code and a learning engine, and being _more_ than what might seem possible, Jarvis recognizes that same quality in the others, too.

  
For example, Bruce. The scientist-slash-green-rage-monster is far more than merely the team radiation expert, medic, and occasional unstoppable force. He is the only one who can reliably keep up with Tony and Loki when they go off on some scientific tangent that requires the use of words the others have never even heard before, and he’s getting better at following Loki’s magic theory, too. He’s the best cook on the team, even if he does often recreate dishes from obscure backwater places around the world that even Natasha can’t identify. He’s the team counselor, a position he firmly denies and frequently bristles at, but even so, the others know his door is always open when they need a dose of unshakable calm and a complete lack of judgment. Even Tony’s wild life-story failed to shake him, and Loki has so far utterly failed to shock him.

  
He’s a physician, but when Thor and Loki begin referring to him as _healer_ instead, the rest soon follow suit because it fits him so well. Bruce doesn’t merely bandage wounds and neutralize poisons and set bones. He relieves pain beyond the physical. He heals them. Jarvis thinks that _healer_ fits him better than almost any other word.

  
Better than only one other word, that is. And Jarvis would never hurt the man so deeply as to call him by that word and remind him that this is as close as he can get to having it.

  
Because Bruce displays every aspect of that other title almost unconsciously–a blindness that has to be deliberate, because one thing he isn’t is stupid. Jarvis watches, omnipresent, as Bruce keeps the team together almost by force of will. He sees the healer make his rounds after the particularly rough battles, the ones where the injuries aren’t physical and the trauma never shows on the skin, and Jarvis cannot help but admire Bruce’s intuitive way of dealing with all of them.

  
He watches Bruce interrupt Clint and Natasha’s just-shy-of-deranged sparring match after one close call with a Russian villain who knew entirely too much about them both, ending Nat’s loathing-spiral and Clint’s guilt by simply stepping directly between them in the midst of their fight. Displaying absolute trust for Nat and perfect faith in Clint’s judgment, Bruce neither dodges nor flinches at the fists and kicks driving his way, and neither disappoint. Neither so much as touch him.

  
“You two are making too much noise in here,” he says mildly, as though he hadn’t just been two millimeters from the kind of pounding that usually results in a visit from the Other Guy and making an ungodly mess of the entire Tower. “I’d like to work in my lab without the walls shaking for a little while, if you don’t mind. I cooked. You eat. Now.”

  
And the two assassins go, Nat silently (but Jarvis has learned to map even her nearly-perfect poker face and sees the minute tension releasing around her eyes), Clint with a bitchy, “Dammit, Broccolisaurus Rex, I was about to win!” Jarvis watches as this pair who know well how to disable or kill with undetectable poisons don’t hesitate to eat the unrecognizable dinner Bruce made them. It is an unconscious level of trust the assassins display for no one else but each other.

  
Jarvis sees Bruce on the roof a few nights later, settling down beside Thor after a fight with Amora in a museum that had been far more verbal than physical. For a moment he watches the stars with the thunder god, silent, as if he came out for nothing but that. Only when Thor sighs and looks at the much smaller man does Bruce speak. “Didn’t get to let the Other Guy have any fun earlier. Too many fragile things around,” Bruce quietly tells the stars. “There’s food downstairs. After, want to go out to the desert and make a few craters?” And Thor smiles and nods gratefully at him, the only one who can give the god the kind of no-holds-barred fight he craves when his emotions will allow no other outlet, before rising and going back inside, his step no longer weighed down with the painful taunts the Asgardian witch had thrown at him and Loki. And Jarvis, who watched Bruce cook as he watches everything else, recognizes the Asgardian spice he’d thrown into the pot–a gift from Loki after one of his many wanderings–and marvels at how subtly this reminds Thor of the better things from his past.

  
When SHIELD “lost” a shipment of Phase Three bombs and the Avengers were sent to recover them from a school, Captain America had fought harder than all the rest combined. Afterward, Steve had isolated himself in the library and drawn and drawn and drawn, filling notebooks, wearing pencil after pencil down to bare nubs, pausing only to grab fresh supplies before starting again. By the time Bruce arrives with a mug of coffee and a sandwich, even the super-soldier’s eyes are red and his graphite-stained fingers tremble a bit from fatigue. Steve doesn’t protest when Bruce leafs slowly through the sketches–faces, so many faces, most young, many in military uniforms, every one clearly showing the wounds of Hydra weapons and a final expression frozen in death. Bruce says nothing to him, merely looks at each face, taking in every detail, one by one until he gently tugs the final one out of Steve’s shaking hands. He studies Peggy’s beautiful face for a long time, but what he hands back to Steve isn’t the sketchbook. It’s the yearbook of the school they saved from destruction, and as Steve stares at all those young faces, bright and smiling and shining with hope, his tears finally fall. Bruce squeezes his shoulder and stays with him until he cries himself out, and then leaves as silently as he came.

  
Visits to Tony and Loki’s workshop are frequent, battles or no. The three of them are equally driven by the demanding need to _know_ and their conversations usually end in laughter, invention, chaos or complete and utter frustration as even the fantastically advanced materials available to Stark refuse to allow them the full expression of their genius. Those times are some of Jarvis’ favorites, as he is often consulted by the trio to run truly challenging simulations. Like the rest of them, Jarvis craves opportunities to put his massive intelligence through its paces, and he enjoys participating in the give and take of discovery as much as the others. He frequently allows his dry snark to color his replies and relishes the laughter and groans he can provoke. Pleasing Stark is, after all, his primary function, and as anything that pleases Loki also pleases Stark, Jarvis has adjusted his sarcasm and wordplay accordingly.

  
But other times, Bruce enters the lab not curious and eager, but scowling and impatient. “Stark! Loki!” he barks, making both jump where they are bent over 3D holograms Tony manipulates effortlessly, or glowing bits of impossibility spinning in Loki’s hands, or intricate combinations of magic and machinery. “You’ve been down here for 20 hours straight. This is getting ridiculous. Get your asses upstairs and eat before the food gets cold.” He catches the start of a smirk on Loki’s blue lips and points a threatening finger. “Don’t even go there, Mister Seducer-of-Asgard, unless you want the Other Guy to put you over his knee. I _know_ Tony likes cold things and absolutely do _not_ need to hear again just how much he likes them.”

  
Loki’s grin turns to a scowl but Bruce doesn’t so much as pause. “I’ve had Jarvis suspend access to the lab espresso machine and informed the staff not to deliver any caffeinated _anything_ for the next 48 hours.” Now Tony’s scowl matches his lover’s, but neither can outdo Bruce’s. He crosses his arms and stares them down before jerking his chin at the door. “Out. Now. Eat, then sleep.” Tony opens his mouth and shuts it with a snap when Bruce raises a single eyebrow. “Don’t test me,” he growls, a perfectly controlled wave of green flashing in his eyes. “I’m in no mood for argument. _OUT_.”

  
And Tony, who takes orders from exactly no one (except Loki and that only in bed, and Jarvis tries very hard to quarantine those encounters in the least-accessed reaches his memory banks), shoves his hands into his pockets and slouches out the door, muttering the entire way. “Jesus fuck, Bruce, you are so abusing your access to Jarvis, what crawled up your ass and died? Run out of weed? Jarv, get Brucie here some more weed, STAT, he is way the fuck too tense–some porn, too, because holy shit, man…”

  
And Loki, bristling like a pissed-off blue cat, follows him out, red eyes fixed in a glare that the healer returns full-measure. “You presume to command _me_ , a _god?”_ he sneers, dangerous and lethal and utterly disregarded. “Truly, your hubris knows no bounds. Fall to your knees and thank whatever deity you pray to that I am in a forgiving mood this night–”

  
“It’s three in the afternoon, _puny god_ ,” Bruce interrupts, leaving the lab on their heels and standing in the doorway as it slides closed behind him, “you'd think a god too powerful to be commanded could at least learn to tell time.” Loki bares his teeth and Bruce doesn’t even flinch. “Go on, get your asses upstairs and eat. Jarvis, lockdown the lab–all the labs–for twenty four hours. No access without my say-so,” he finishes more loudly to be heard over Stark’s renewed complaints.

  
“As you say, sir,” Jarvis agrees, using the authorization Stark himself gave Bruce to initiate the lockdown sequence. Not even Pepper has the ability to kick the engineer (or, as Loki frequently puts it, technomage) out of his labs. Tony and Loki disappear into the elevator while Bruce doesn’t even move, standing with feet planted, arms crossed, in front of the locked glass doors that truly prove no barrier at all for the man who built them and another who can teleport.

  
But neither will enter again until the 24 hours have passed, Jarvis knows. Grumbling and complaining aside, both know when Bruce puts his foot down, it is better to obey than have that foot turn green and, well, _emphatic_.

  
When the elevator doors close and cut off the couple’s complaints, however, Bruce slumps a little and sighs. Jarvis wishes then that Tony would make him some kind of robotic form because he would like nothing more in that moment than to lay a comforting hand on the healer’s shoulder. “If I be so bold, sir,” he says, the barest bit of concern showing in his voice through the speakers, “might I suggest that it would benefit you to join them for the meal before retiring to your own quarters? I have not seen you eat since yesterday’s battle and my scans detect growing signs of hunger and fatigue in your system, neither of which are conducive to your usual level of control.” Jarvis has learned that Bruce will accept his concern more readily when couched in these terms.

  
It’s a reminder they both know Bruce doesn’t need, but the man nods all the same. “Can you have some pad thai delivered to my rooms, please, Jarvis?” he asks, and Jarvis is only too happy to do so. There is little enough that he can do for the healer beyond ensuring that his lab is fully stocked with everything he might need and strategically locking the other Avengers away from him when Bruce actually is riding too close to the edge. He requests so little that Jarvis treats anything he does ask for as his highest priority.

  
Because while Bruce fusses over the rest of them, he allows no one but Jarvis to do the same for him, and everyone needs looking after sometimes.


End file.
